At what point before an advance train does your ticket work at the station barriers?

[Pemberton]

I had a ticket for a 1427 train on Friday and due to the disruption in the north of England / Scotland and my original train only going as far as Preston, instead of my booked Lancaster, I took it on myself to go an hour earlier at 1327. On trying to use my eticket at the station barriers at 1258, an hour and 29 minutes before what was my booked train, my ticket was rejected and I had to be let manually through the barriers. I was told it was because I was too early and a Supervisor had to be summoned to see if I could be allowed on to the platform. So, I wondered if anyone knew, with an advance ticket do the station barriers only accept a timed ticket if you try to get through the barriers, say possibly just within an hour of your booked train time?

 

[Class800]

Avanti have said if your train is cancelled you can take the one before or after - though the standard conditions say the one after is the one you can take without asking. So, for other companies this remains the case.

 

[hexagon789]

I had a ticket for a 1427 train on Friday and due to the disruption in the north of England / Scotland and my original train only going as far as Preston, instead of my booked Lancaster, I took it on myself to go an hour earlier at 1327. On trying to use my eticket at the station barriers at 1258, an hour and 29 minutes before what was my booked train, my ticket was rejected and I had to be let manually through the barriers. I was told it was because I was too early and a Supervisor had to be summoned to see if I could be allowed on to the platform. So, I wondered if anyone knew, with an advance ticket do the station barriers only accept a timed ticket if you try to get through the barriers, say possibly just within an hour of your booked train time?

I don't believe the barriers are as clever as that, at least not from the bits of info I've garnered from threads on here over the years. I'm sure someone who has the precise knowledge of the wokrings of the barriers will be able to clarify, but my suspicion is that the barriers might just be set to automatically reject an Advances in order that staff have to manually check them. I think only peak restrictions are encoded in ticket data. Unless e-tickets hold significantly more data than paper ticket mag strips?

There is a barrier error code (possibly 107(?)) for - 'time restraint applies to this ticket', but I believe that is for off-peak tickets.

 

[FatContr0ller]

NR Gatelines reject all advanced single tickets so they can be manually checked, not sure about TFL land though

 

[Pemberton]

Thank you. I was a bit wary of the 'too early' for your ticket to work in the barriers comment.

 

[Snow1964]

NR Gatelines reject all advanced single tickets so they can be manually checked, not sure about TFL land though

A daft concept, install expensive gates, go back to manual ticket checking even if it valid on next train or valid for long journey (a non-short fare journey)

I have never yet encountered any staff that can read a magnetic stripe or barcode without a machine, so if going manual could save effort of adding them and simplifying the ticket.

 

[FatContr0ller]

A daft concept, install expensive gates, go back to manual ticket checking even if it valid on next train or valid for long journey (a non-short fare journey)

I have never yet encountered any staff that can read a magnetic stripe or barcode without a machine, so if going manual could save effort of adding them and simplifying the ticket.

My line has had gates for years, (at least 10 I think) and our revenue are trained to read ccst tickets by eye, even if in my station they end up sending people to me to check restrictions occasionally. Don't know about qr coded tickets as they deal with those with their handhelds

 

[Haywain]

NR Gatelines reject all advanced single tickets

Who are NR in this case?

 

[LA50041]

NR Gatelines reject all advanced single tickets so they can be manually checked, not sure about TFL land though

Really? I’ve never had a problem at either Paddington Kings Cross or Liverpool Street using advance tickets.

 

[Titfield]

Network Rail ?

 

[Hadders]

Who are NR in this case?

I assume the OP meant Northern Rail.

In my experience some ticket gates are set to reject all Advance tickets so a manual check can be made This happens at Stevenage when an Advance ticket is on CCST but not with Advance tickets in e-ticket format.

 

[FatContr0ller]

I assume the OP meant Northern Rail.

In my experience some ticket gates are set to reject all Advance tickets so a manual check can be made This happens at Stevenage when an Advance ticket is on CCST but not with Advance tickets in e-ticket format.

National Rail (sorry should hsve been clearer), and svg is one of "mine" so maybe its my TOCs gates alone then?


But for 5 years they've never worked the gates at my station

 

[yorkie]

I had a ticket for a 1427 train on Friday and due to the disruption in the north of England / Scotland and my original train only going as far as Preston, instead of my booked Lancaster, I took it on myself to go an hour earlier at 1327. On trying to use my eticket at the station barriers at 1258, an hour and 29 minutes before what was my booked train, my ticket was rejected and I had to be let manually through the barriers. I was told it was because I was too early and a Supervisor had to be summoned to see if I could be allowed on to the platform. So, I wondered if anyone knew, with an advance ticket do the station barriers only accept a timed ticket if you try to get through the barriers, say possibly just within an hour of your booked train time?

I suspect the barriers are likely either programmed to accept the tickets for the entirety of the day, or to reject all Advance tickets for manual inspection.

National Rail (sorry should hsve been clearer), and svg is one of "mine" so maybe its my TOCs gates alone then?


But for 5 years they've never worked the gates at my station

I've known GTR gatelines reject Advance fares for no good reason, so I guess that is what you are referring to. I've not noticed it anywhere else.

 

[FatContr0ller]

Really? I’ve never had a problem at either Paddington Kings Cross or Liverpool Street using advance tickets.

Im guessing they would come under TFL land, as any maltese cross marked ticket should open gates in London regardless

I suspect the barriers are likely either programmed to accept the tickets for the entirety of the day, or to reject all Advance tickets for manual inspection.

I've known GTR gatelines reject Advance fares for no good reason, so I guess that is what you are referring to. I've not noticed it anywhere else.

Our gates reject a lot of tickets regardless what "restrictions" are set on the SCU.
Drives me mad when our gateline don't show up/are on break (gates are set open but get lots of passengers asking why its beeping/did it work etc)

 

[yorkie]

Im guessing they would come under TFL land, as any maltese cross marked ticket should open gates in London regardless

I assume they were referring to the mainline statins, but yes in the case of LU any magnetic stock ticket with a cross London marker should open the ticket barriers at any of the relevant interchange stations, regardless of ticket type, or time of day.

 

[LA50041]

Im guessing they would come under TFL land, as any maltese cross marked ticket should open gates in London regardless


Our gates reject a lot of tickets regardless what "restrictions" are set on the SCU.
Drives me mad when our gateline don't show up/are on break (gates are set open but get lots of passengers asking why its beeping/did it work etc)

How would London - Leeds, London - Cardiff or London - Cambridge be anything to do with TfL?

 

[Haywain]

National Rail (sorry should hsve been clearer), and svg is one of "mine" so maybe its my TOCs gates alone then?

I have never experienced any problem with advance tickets in eTicket format operating ticket gates. I don't have vast experience of suing them but enough to know that they are not rejected by default.

Our gates reject a lot of tickets regardless what "restrictions" are set on the SCU.

The SCU is not the sole determinant of what tickets are accepted. It also needs each individual ticket type to be set up in the base data for the station gatelines, and I expect that this is the greater problem.

 

[CyrusWuff]

How would London - Leeds, London - Cardiff or London - Cambridge be anything to do with TfL?

They aren't, but I'm led to believe that gateline configuration throughout the Travelcard Area has been ultimately managed by TfL since the introduction of Oyster. As such, if a managing TOC wishes to update the configuration of "their" gateline (beyond what's possible at a local level), it has to go through TfL's system rather than being able to implement it directly.

As an aside, barcode and magstripe tickets have separate configurations, at least on Cubic ticket gates, hence why you sometimes get a magstripe ticket rejected but an otherwise identical barcode ticket accepted and vice versa.

 

[alistairlees]

The Aztec barcode in an eTicket can (and should) contain a "time valid after" value for the origin station, so far as I recall. Gatelines and handheld scanners may be configured differently to interpret this.

 

[Wallsendmag]

NR Gatelines reject all advanced single tickets so they can be manually checked, not sure about TFL land though

Utter rubbish at least as far as LNER gates are concerned.

 

[FatContr0ller]

I have never experienced any problem with advance tickets in eTicket format operating ticket gates. I don't have vast experience of suing them but enough to know that they are not rejected by default.

The SCU is not the sole determinant of what tickets are accepted. It also needs each individual ticket type to be set up in the base data for the station gatelines, and I expect that this is the greater problem.

E ticket advances work on "my" gates, its the ccst that don't, but then we do have a seperate scu running the barcode scanners, so wouldn't surprise me if its 2 systems running in tandem

Utter rubbish at least as far as LNER gates are concerned.

Can only speak so as to my experiences at mine and other stations around my patch, and what pax have told me, but then I dont operate gates, I just see it happen from my window.

How would London - Leeds, London - Cardiff or London - Cambridge be anything to do with TfL?

Tfl run some or all of the back office gear since oyster got put in apparently - I know we get emails about TFL updating their systems so some of our stuff wont work for x time (normally smart ticketing though)
Plus cubic maintain our gates and aren't they TFLs main contractors for all intents and purposes?

 

[AM9]

Are we in a transition period where some gates that read Aztec coded e-tickets validate them at back-offices in real-time, whereas the limited data available on a ccst is a 'local' decision - particularly at major stations that have a lot of IC travellers. This might not apply to TfL operated main line gatelines where the limited range of origins would be easier to program locally.

 

[Haywain]

Plus cubic maintain our gates and aren't they TFLs main contractors for all intents and purposes?

Who else would be maintaining gates manufactured by Cubic?

 

[FatContr0ller]

Who else would be maintaining gates manufactured by Cubic?

Fair point

 

[Scott1]

My TOCs gatelines are all roughly the same, but as the rules are set for each set of gates there are variations. Some stations will chime for a child tix and some won't, for example. Advances are all set to let in 25 minutes before with a couple of specific exceptions. The gates are not intelligent so it is a blanket rule, this means where a change is made, such as a cancellation allowing earlier travel, the gate will reject the ticket as it doesn't know why the passenger is trying to get in early. Ditto trying to leave too.

 

[ashkeba]

Advances are all set to let in 25 minutes before with a couple of specific exceptions. The gates are not intelligent so it is a blanket rule, this means where a change is made, such as a cancellation allowing earlier travel, the gate will reject the ticket as it doesn't know why the passenger is trying to get in early. Ditto trying to leave too.

Is that adding insult to injury for passengers on late running trains? Customers should stop being punished like this for buying Advances.

 

[Scott1]

Is that adding insult to injury for passengers on late running trains? Customers should stop being punished like this for buying Advances.

The opposite, it's a good thing. The barriers keep the tickets at most stations, and you need it for delay repay, so by rejecting the ticket the attendant can give it you back so you've got it for your claim.

 

[Haywain]

The opposite, it's a good thing. The barriers keep the tickets at most stations, and you need it for delay repay, so by rejecting the ticket the attendant can give it you back so you've got it for your claim.

It's neither because it's about what happens on entering the gateline, not exiting.

 

[Scott1]

It's neither because it's about what happens on entering the gateline, not exiting.

So your comment is about a late running train that you are joining? Not many people would be effected in the way I think your describing, but if I'm honest I'm not very clear what your suggesting the issue is?

 

[Deerfold]

So your comment is about a late running train that you are joining? Not many people would be effected in the way I think your describing, but if I'm honest I'm not very clear what your suggesting the issue is?

You may want to re-read the thread. This was a question about entering a station with an Advance ticket.